This page teaches the money flow that connects a work-study specialist's SMV table to a merchandiser's costing sheet. Lesson 8.1.3 built Order A's full SMV table, five operations adding to 2.62 minutes per piece, but a minute figure alone is not a dollar figure. A factory turns SMV into a labour cost by multiplying it by a labour rate per minute, and that single multiplication is the bridge between work study and costing.
This matters to Delta Garments' merchandiser every time an SMV table changes, since a revised SMV must flow through to a revised labour cost, and to its share of the whole quoted price, without anyone needing to rebuild the costing sheet from scratch.
You need: lesson 8.1.3's full SMV table for Order A (five operations, 2.62 minutes total), and the idea of a formula-driven costing sheet from lesson 7.2.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: trims and wet processes, already covered in lessons 12.3.1 and 12.3.2, and adding overhead and profit on top of CM (lesson 12.3.4).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Standard minute value (SMV) | The standard time, in minutes, a trained operator needs to complete one operation on one piece, used to calculate a line's expected output and workload. |
| Making charge | The labour cost of cutting, sewing and finishing one garment, often called CM (cut-make) on a factory's own cost sheet. |
| CMT (cut, make and trim) | The buyer supplies the fabric; the factory is paid only for cutting, sewing and finishing. |
Every garment's total SMV, built up operation by operation, becomes a dollar labour cost only once it is multiplied by a labour rate per minute. That rate itself comes from the factory's own real labour cost, benefits and running time, but once known, it applies consistently across every operation and every garment on the same line. A CM figure quoted without reference to any SMV or labour rate cannot be checked or defended; a CM figure built from SMV times rate can be traced back to both.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A labour rate already known from the factory's own records | A factory that already tracks its total labour cost per minute across its line applies that known rate directly to any new garment's SMV. | The rate is a real, measured fact from the factory's own payroll and output, not derived from any one order. |
| A labour rate derived from an already-fixed making cost | Where only a garment's total SMV and its already-agreed making cost are known, as with Order A (2.62 minutes and USD 1.10), a labour rate can be derived by dividing one by the other. | The derived rate, about USD 0.42 per minute, is not a new fact; it is a calculation from two figures already fixed elsewhere, and should be labelled as a derivation, not an independent measurement. |
| Export orders where a buyer expects CM to trace to SMV | An export buyer such as Northline Apparel expects the making-cost share of a quoted FOB price to trace back to the underlying SMV table, not stand alone as a round number. | A CM figure without a traceable SMV and labour rate behind it cannot be defended if a buyer questions the making cost. |
| A domestic brand's own workforce costing | Cedar & Co., planning its own domestic run in the identical T-shirt style, uses the identical SMV table and the identical labour-rate method to reach its own CM figure, even though no external buyer will audit it. | The method for turning SMV into CM does not change with who reads the resulting figure. |
| A more complex garment with a longer operation sequence | A garment with more operations has a higher total SMV, and therefore a higher CM at the same labour rate, without any change to the rate itself. | More operations change the SMV total, and therefore the CM total; the multiplication method stays the same. |
Mona, the merchandiser at Delta Garments, already has two fixed figures for Order A: its total SMV of 2.62 minutes, from lesson 8.1.3's own build-up table, and its already-agreed making cost of USD 1.10 per piece, from the order's own costing sheet. She derives a labour rate per minute by dividing 1.10 by 2.62, giving about USD 0.42 per minute, and then checks that this rate, applied back to each individual operation's own SMV, reconstructs the same USD 1.10 total.
| Fact | What it tells Mona |
|---|---|
| Order A's total SMV is 2.62 minutes, already fixed | This is the multiplier her labour rate must apply to |
| Order A's making cost is USD 1.10 per piece, already fixed | Dividing this by the SMV derives the labour rate, rather than inventing one |
| The derived rate, about USD 0.42 per minute, is not itself a new fixed fact | It is a calculation Mona can show her working for, not a separate figure to defend on its own |
| Applying the derived rate to each operation's own SMV should reconstruct the same USD 1.10 total | This checks that the derivation is consistent, not just convenient |
Deriving the rate once, from two already-fixed figures, lets Mona apply the identical rate to any future garment sewn on the same line, as long as the line's real labour cost has not itself changed.
The worked numberRounded to two decimal places, 1.1004 gives Order A's own fixed CM of USD 1.10 per piece, confirming the derived labour rate of USD 0.42 per minute is consistent with both the SMV table and the already-fixed making cost.
A common mistake is deriving a labour rate once, from an SMV and a making cost, and then treating that rate as a permanent, independently fixed fact rather than a calculation tied to the two figures it came from. If the garment's own SMV is later revised, for example after an SMV audit corrects one operation's allowance, a labour rate derived from the old SMV no longer matches the factory's real labour cost, and reapplying it to the new SMV produces a CM figure that no longer reconciles with anything real. A derived rate needs to be re-derived, or replaced with the factory's own measured rate, whenever the figures behind it change.
A garment's sewing cost in minutes, its SMV, is not yet a cost in dollars. To turn minutes into dollars, you multiply the SMV by how much one minute of sewing time actually costs. Sometimes a factory already knows this dollar-per-minute rate from its own records. Sometimes you only know the total minutes and the total dollars already agreed for a garment, and in that case you can work out the rate by dividing the dollars by the minutes. That worked-out rate is not a new fact on its own; it only holds true as long as the two numbers it came from stay true.
Sara, the buyer at Northline Apparel, is reviewing Order A's costing sheet before final approval and notices the making cost is listed as USD 1.10 per piece with no supporting detail. She asks Mona to show the calculation behind it.
Sara's message reads:
Can Mona answer Sara's question using only the SMV table and the labour rate, or does she need a new number she does not already have?
Mona can answer fully using only figures she already has; no new number is needed.
First, the SMV table already exists. Lesson 8.1.3's own build-up table already gives every operation's own SMV and the 2.62-minute total, with no further work needed to obtain it.
Second, the labour rate is a derivation, not a new fact. Dividing the already-fixed USD 1.10 making cost by the already-fixed 2.62-minute total SMV gives about USD 0.42 per minute, a calculation Mona can show step by step rather than a number she has to separately justify.
Mona should show Sara the full operation-by-operation build-up: each operation's own SMV multiplied by the USD 0.42 rate, summing back to the USD 1.10 total, proving the making cost is not an arbitrary round figure but a traceable calculation from the factory's own SMV table.
Framed against Order A's own 15,000-piece order, a making cost of USD 1.10 per piece with no supporting SMV or labour rate gives Delta Garments no way to answer a buyer's challenge, and no way to check whether a future SMV revision should actually change the price at all.
If Sara's question in this lesson's scenario had gone unanswered, Northline Apparel could reasonably suspect the USD 16,500.00 making-cost total for the whole order was padded, undermining Delta Garments' credibility on every other line of the costing sheet as well, a reputational cost that a traceable SMV-to-CM build-up avoids entirely.
Open the Trims, process and CM cost sheet calculator. On its SMV-to-CM sheet, enter the garment's own total SMV; the labour rate per minute calculates automatically from the making cost you enter, and the CM labour cost per piece calculates automatically from the SMV and the rate. Check that the calculated CM matches any already-fixed making cost for the order before accepting the sheet.
[Download the Trims, process and CM cost sheet calculator](../../templates/T12-C03-trims-process-cm-cost-sheet-calculator.xlsx)
Download the Trims, process and CM cost sheet calculator (Excel)
1. How is a garment's CM labour cost calculated from its SMV?
2. A garment has a total SMV of 3.00 minutes and an already-fixed making cost of USD 1.20 per piece. What is the derived labour rate per minute?
3. Why is a labour rate derived from an SMV and a making cost not treated as a new, independent fixed fact?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard minute value (SMV) | قيمة الدقيقة المعيارية (SMV) | Valeur minute standard (SMV) | Standart dakika değeri (SMV) | The standard time, in minutes, a trained operator needs to complete one operation on one piece, used to calculate a line's expected output and workload. |
| Making charge | تكلفة التصنيع | Coût de façon | İşçilik (fason) maliyeti | The labour cost of cutting, sewing and finishing one garment, often called CM (cut-make) on a factory's own cost sheet. |
| CMT (cut, make and trim) | تشغيل فقط: قص وخياطة على قماش المشتري | Façon (CMT) | Fason (CMT) | The buyer supplies the fabric; the factory is paid only for cutting, sewing and finishing. |
You can now turn a garment's SMV into its own CM labour cost. The next lesson adds overhead and profit on top of CM and trims to reach the factory's full asking price. Back to the course map